>> i certainly don't know. you might. >> i'm not the government, so i can't talk to you right now about what's going on. but my sense is like yours and i think as george said as well, too. the u.s. government is starting to take some of the steps that i described, whether it's working with the gulf cooperation countries in terms of enhancing their defensive and ballistic missile defenses and security cooperation. i think that's the right thing to do. some of that actually started in the last administration. remember secretary rice started to have meetings with the gcc countries plus the saudi arabia and jordan i believe. and egypt. i'm sorry, you're right. and she started talking to them not about iran, but also started talking about okay, how do we do with regional security. and secretary continue may remember early on when she went

to the gulf. she said something about the importance of defenses. and a lot of commentators interpreted that as many were giving up on stopping iran from having nuclear weapons and she quickly clarified that no that's not the case. the challenge for the administration or any other administration is how do you shift from the diplomacy of prevention in the case of iran to the diplomacy to detainment in deterrence without suggesting, without losing your allies, without suggesting that you've given up on preventing iran from having nuclear weapons or without suggesting somehow it's acceptable. ..

the credibility of the u.s. deterrent and on wednesday the president will sign in the start agreement which will extend the process of further reducing both in numbers of u.s. nuclear weapons and their means of delivery. there has been too much discussion about the coupling between these proliferation

discussions, we've been concerned about with respect to iran and the reduction in u.s. nuclear capability. but on the commission on the u.s. nuclear posture that was chaired by secretary perry it took some very persuasive testimony about the concern and that many allied and printing governments have about the reduction in u.s. nuclear capabilities so i wonder if this factors likely to have an impact on whether regional consequences of iran becoming a nuclear power. >> george will answer. >> well, i think things get conflated. in other words, reduction of marginal capability that is the strategic command it in u.s. military commanders said they can do without changing the

forced posture doctrine nor anything else which is what's been proposed from the start does nothing even to change u.s. ultimate capability and i think that that's being conveyed to all of it the allies. the allies i think you're referring to generally tend to be japan and some of the native states. in japan this since the paris schlesinger commission the japanese government has changed and come back to say please do take go way the sea launched cruise missile that the u.s. have been retaining even though the navy didn't want or we didn't feel we needed but we retained at the request of japan as a kind of reassurance and asked to have that removed. in support of a disarmament and other things and then the in nato as you know the foreign ministers of germany, the netherlands, norway, belgium and

luxembourg as greg mention asked that nato now take on this issue of how to reconcile deterrence. not necessarily nuclear deterrence but deterrence with the agenda of seeking speak, so i think the environment is changing from the way it was in the cold war were in your everybody was worried about a mass soviets invasion through the coli gap or they wouldn't feel secure if we didn't have nuclear-weapons to deal with mass of some of the superiority to now the situation where it's reversed. the russians are going to be slowing the disarmament process because they are worried about nato superiority against russia. none of that dealt with the middle east which is the region here except turkey were the administration's position as i understand it on turkey is basically the weapons can stay there as long as the turks want them. the u.s. will do nothing

unilaterally to remove even these tactical nuclear bombs in europe which all the military and you know this better than i do are obsolete. we would never use those in the military operation but we are saying basically to pacify and make people feel real assured will leave them there so there isn't a unilateral production. the more difficult issue is the question and of the not so much with the u.s. isn't putting tactical nuclear weapons in the region so any kind of extended nuclear deterrence would be from the systems, the summer rains, the land base systems and the bombers in the u.s. and whether that would even be necessary or would be helpful at a time when you're still trying to persuade iran not to build a clear weapons in the first place and try to persuade iran's neighbors and the rest of the world to work with you to press iran. he then announced by the way we will use our nuclear weapons against iran if they don't stop

trying to get them, i don't know how that would help the politics of it but i don't know also whether u.s. military planners was a bill would need nuclear weapons in any way to defeat iran in that kind of scenario. the ones i've talked to said we don't or wouldn't in which case why would you talk about introducing them now because and don't know there would be reassuring actually in the middle eastern conflict where we bring nuclear-weapons in the equation. i don't know how that would play politically and therefore be reassuring but you might have better -- >> my question is addressed to simon. do you agree with your colleagues it's too late to prevent iran from getting nuclear weapons? and not quite clear of the

insert and as a follow-up what would happen to the status of america in the middle east and after both bush administration and obama administration repeatedly said they would not allow iran to get nuclear weapons capability and if they do get it what would happen then? and. >> i personally don't sense that economic and financial sanctions are going to be active in deterring iran nine from pursuing nuclear weapon route and i also don't think that diplomatic pressure will succeed these measures might delay

samson, but they will necessarily change things. my assessment of iran is that iran wants a nuclear weapon and in particular this regime in that iran wants nuclear weapons because they see that that will guarantee the islamic republic ended with give them and the kudos of having provided iran with a nuclear weapon and. i also think that iran see use a nuclear weapon in the way that north korea sees it which is this will be a way of deterring the bullying of the world community and in particular the united states so in other words, there's more pressure on iran finds itself under from the united states to my way of thinking there is a great danger is that it will only reinforce its determination to have

nuclear weapons. in -- left open in this assessment is in the impact of a military assault of one form or another on the iran. i am no expert. you might delay iran getting a nuclear weapon, but and there are consequences were there are likely to be consequences and those people that i gtri think the consequences would be enormous rather than the apparent zero consequence of and the impact of of the attack on the syrian reactor. >> [inaudible] >> well, i will leave it to my colleagues to pass judgment. i don't -- as only an aspiring

american i don't feel qualified and now to really make that judgment pinwheeling >> george and i quickly converted it wouldn't look good if they took their weapons. [laughter] that was pretty easy actually. after multiple administrations that said this would be an acceptable one thing i've learned in my career dealing first with the balkans and the nuclear proliferation is never say something unacceptable because you'll find yourself excepting it but focus on what you're going to do to prevented from happening or is happening to contain the consequence so i think rather than wringing our hands with iran getting nuclear weapons and say are the policy was a successful we have to say we're facing a pretty darn determined opponent here. we need to think about how do we make sure the every leadership is not left better off but is left worse off, that it doesn't

gain those things that perhaps it wants whether prestige or influence or security and then how overtime and this is hard and may take a long time, how you rolled back the program. how do you make it clear that they are not benefiting from the nuclear arms and there is another path to having chosen ads and perhaps someday will find a different iranian leadership that decides they're better off without those nuclear weapons so i think rather than saying we weren't successful i think we need to figure out how to succeed in the longer term in terms of minimizing the influence, minimizing benefits they get from nuclear arms and maybe eventually convincing them under the leadership to give them off. >> we have time for two more questions, can we take them both as on one.

>> thank-you. [inaudible] neither is ray lane or pakistan nuclear capability are raising the possibility of having a direct impact and the shift in the region, but the regional countries seem to be reluctant to take a bold position against iran. so my question is, are they willingly accepting to have a shift in the balance of power in the region? or do they see themselves irrelevant to the outcome of this a lot of blacks to the outcome of this is the line on? >> a representative of the national defense university and no one has talked about the

bombing option very much and how much delay and some -- we know some of the likely repercussions in terms of iranian terrorism but i would like to say a few words about the panel's thoughts. >> i am a military option -- i kind of lead to in general -- blood the general putin made. i think since for the last several years including the bush administration and it was very clear in secretary gates testimony and the bush administration were he said he thought iran with nuclear weapons was the terrible and you seen in statements admiral mollen and others say clearly there's military with a sense that the bombing is not going to put the u.s. and a better position who over the ensuing years and i haven't read anything that makes me think that's not right.

the question earlier about the status of the u.s. and iran gets nuclear weapons, that's a good question. we have to evaluate that against the status of the u.s. took other actions so, in other words, a bombing campaign, how would that leave the status and i don't know the answer. it could be better but i think that's the way. on your question which is a great question, this is something which confounds -- i know it confounds u.s. diplomats and others. when you talk to regional countries and their leaders privately, they say how very very concerned they are and how much they don't want iran to have nuclear weapons capability and then you ask how come publicly your government doesn't go out and either make expressions of that our work more closely with the u.s. and others and you get different answers, but they don't. sometimes they say we don't want

to make the iranians come after us or there are things they can do to ask why lean and interfere in our internal affairs that we don't want to do. we don't want to alienate them. and so there are lots of different answers, but i know in several other countries in the region going back several years of have officials say privately you should bomb them than i say what will your country do after we bomb them and they say we will hang your presidents in effigy. and our people will fill the streets. and so i think that's part of the attention. turkey has been very interesting in a sense offering especially with the proposed deal to fill their research. turkey stuffed in a way that was welcome to try to build confidence and perhaps a per prepared my guess is without

knowing the details that turkey was probably frustrated by dealing with the iranians on this issue as well without one response to the neighbors haven't tried to deal with iran everybody who deals with them as frustrated. maybe not hezbollah, but everybody else. the question is two decades of frustration to themselves or do they express in different ways and i think that's -- i don't have the answer to that but everyone's frustrated including turkey or the other states. >> when we talk about bombing there's a big wild card here, that's obviously is real. i'm not in a position to evaluate how the recent developments between the u.s. and israel might affect the decision making but i can say individually as a person i was prius that israel and didn't undertake military action a couple years ago. israel says some pretty clear red lines and usually when israel sets redlines possess

something is an unacceptable it will do something and it was clear to me remember when the israeli government was talking about the point of no return i understood that and interpreted as having in richmond capability. but they didn't act at that point and we tend to understand more about with the decisionmaking problem but i suspect the government how complicated that was in the middle east. what about other countries in the region? if i may pick on your own country, turkey, and he knows i'm a great reporter that i am a friend of turkey and work closely with turkey in nato and during the balkans and at the iaea, but i have to say i've been disappointed recently. after i left the iaea board of governments passed a revolution on iran that was after the second enrichment facility had

been exposed to the world and there was resolution that basically condemned iran the house for violating security council resolutions, not having told the iaea about this nuclear facility in in france. this is the first resolution that was passed by the board of governors since we reported that iran to the security council. it was significant and we got a pretty good majority of the iaea board to go along with us. it wasn't just the u.s. or your colleagues -- and was japan, australia, russia, china, countries from africa, countries from south america. what did turkey do? it abstained. how could turkey abstained on the fact that a country next to them is by letting security council resolutions and failed to tell the iaea about this facility there building that didn't look like a single

facility, excuse me. the turkish ambassador explained at the time we were trying to mediate and stop the timing was bad and so forth and so on but what i've told my turkish friends is p. where of offers to mediate. when i was in vienna i did a lot of traveling to talk to government and spake and every government and go to particularly in on the board of governments as turkey is they would tell me master solti, the ivory news just came to us and said we could mediate. we heard that from this all the indians and the swiss and the spanish and italians and i think that was a talking point that might iranian counterpoints are using saying you could be a hero and mediate. that is sort of tempting. isn't it nice to be the mediator and nontank are positions and put pressure on. if you're not successful is probably because the u.s. must develop. if you are successful you will be a great hero.

is a clever strategy by the every new government to let everyone mediate. typical was a successful parent this was tried for a while and then this was got frustrated and said forget it. we are going to join with the rest of europe and the west in condemning what's going on. the spanish, the italians for an attempted. but in the end turkey fell for the siren song of mediation and to meet it is worrisome because turkey is an important country, it has a lot of influence in the region, nato ally, and with turkey abstaining is basically sending a signal to iran that you are being successful in dividing the international community. turkey abstaining, brazil abstained also, that's a problem and turkey and brazil also happen to be on the security council right now. big victory for iran as a look and the security council to put

sanctions in place. so i think it's very tempting for the countries in the region to try to be neutral, but how can you be neutral on something like this that has such major implications for regional security and for most of the rest of the world is not on the side of iran, not sitting at the middle and is joining everyone else in condemning what they're doing and urging them to comply with international council and take advantage of negotiations and so forth. >> thank you, greg. this is to bring this session to an end. thank you for being such a good audience and coming up with interesting questions and i would like to thank my two colleagues with some great presentations. thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

a discussion look the anti-government groups and militias from today's "washington journal". this is about 45 minutes. >> host: bois joining as from montgomery, alabama is mark potok, the intelligence projects director at the southern poverty law center to talk to us about

militias and extremist groups in the u.s.. welcome to the program. >> guest: thank you so much for having me. >> host: as background about what exactly is the southern port l center. >> guest: well, the southern poverty law center was formed in 1971 in montgomery, alabama. by a couple of lawyers and several years basically did kind of classics all rights work, having to do with voting rights and that sort of thing. in their early eighties we got into really the work that made the plays well loan which was suing white supremacist groups, the klan in particular. basically they were built around the idea of holding the leader in the corporate group itself civilly responsible for the criminal actions of followers and those were quite successful. and our officers were burned to the ground back in 1983 by the klan would actually help to make the place quite famous and since then we expanded in a number of

voice. our lawyers to a lot of immigrants rights work, a lot of juvenile justice work, those kinds of issues. my own department covers broadly the radical right in the united states and we have a big teaching tolerance department there produces material for teachers of kids k. 312. >> host: most recently in the headlines has been the militia group out of detroit, michigan and with this headline militia is appalled by suspects, the fbi says the detroit office said last tuesday that other militias have distanced themselves from the nine members of the midwest group who were indicted this week for plotting to kill off horsemen officers. tell us what you know about this group and why is that other militia groups seem to be tried to put distance between themselves of these guys? >> guest: well, this was an odd group. basically they believe like most so-called patriot groups or

militia type groups that to the world was headed for hell in a handbasket basically. what they believed essentially was there was coming commercial law, throwing good americans into concentration camps, those who resist an old what did the pushing of the u.s. assuming into a so-called new world order, some kind of socialistic one world government. it's not very fine in their ridings. this group was interesting in that it puts a very kind of christian millennial spin on the new world order idea. they, in fact, instead of talking specifically about the new world order talk about the antitrust and they seem to associate the anti priced may be hobbyhorse a lot of people all, former secretary general of the european union and the number of other european high positions but it is very much with the idea of other militias and pitcher groups which sea of

heads of transnational organizations the united nations, the e.u., three figurations of the terrible socialists hal we are headed for. in any event this group is accused of a remarkable plots. and supposedly they were going to murder a local police officer that would draw them hundreds of other law firm officials from all around the country to a big funeral and our idea was that they would attack this funeral with improvised explosive devices and also misfiles. it was quite remarkable. so given all that it's no surprise to me at all that the other militias of hatred groups and related organizations are essentially running away from them as fast as their feet can take them and want nothing to do with this plot to murder a whole lot of police officers. >> host: we're talking about militias and extremist groups in the u.s. with mark potok of the southern poverty law center. if you want to get involved it

is a call at (202)737-0001 republicans, (202)737-0002 independence, (202)728-0205. we want to show you a little bit about what senator joseph lieberman of connecticut had to say about the subject and then will go to your calls and more with mark potok. >> the threat is definitely escalated and all the conditions you mentioned are there to encourage people. i would say a word of question to my colleagues in political parties and frankly in the media, the level of discourse about our politics and our country are so extreme and so incendiary that if you're dealing with people who may not be clicking on all cylinders with and may have all the abilities personally, there's a danger that they're going to do this group of the list a plan to do this week, i would not overstate